What I discovered includes guerrilla fighters, brother fighting brother, brother maybe even killing brother, and, to boot, a hidden family. There was even a point, as I was transcribing a record, when I literally gasped.

I recently discovered an obituary of a relative with the intriguing headline: “Wrote His Own Obituary.” I knew about this man, but it was as if his entire life had been obscured until I read it.

Genealogy can be slow and piecemeal, even a little messy. It requires patience and a certain amount of tolerance for uncertainty. So it is with the Buckleys, my great-great-grandmother’s family.

I was always skeptical that my great-great-grandfather, an Irish tenant farmer, would have a prominent brother-in-law practicing law up in Belfast. But I decided to go looking and you know what? I found him.

I think it’s fair to say that just about everything in genealogy is, or ought to be, suspect—at least at first. At least until you can verify it or corroborate it somehow. You shouldn’t even take a judge’s word for it.